Overheating in Seattle 1/2 Marathon?

That I did.

Seattle temps started out about 39 degrees with no wind but fog with drizzle. What is a girl to wear?!

A pearl izumi short sleeve shirt and a long sleeve shirt over. I also had brand new CW-X compression knickers. Typically this would be fine on my regular training runs but alas I forgot I would be running much faster! Well apparently I wore too much.

One of these days I will understand running races.

This race is HILLY! Wow. Really flippin' hilly the 2nd half. Of all of my 1/2 marathons (3 now) and 10ks (4) the Seattle 1/2 marathon is hands down the hilliest and hardest.

My garmin wanted to get the readings off the building the first 2 miles (800 feet! haha.. not) so my total climb is a little off but definitely 2000+ feet. I was also on track for a 1:45:00 pace after 6.5 miles .. by mile 8 I was grabbing for my inhaler .. and debating whether to pour water on my head or not. If I did that, then I would be cold the remaining 5+ miles.

I drank my 12oz bottle of G2 throughout the race and grabbed a little water at three stations and ate the Gu at Mile 6. The hills really took it out on me but still something wasn't right. By mile 10 I was just thinking "get this over with already"! Its all down hill from there, so I thought. Even the smallest rise in elevation felt like the biggest hill ever the last three miles. The last .2 miles was abusive with a small hill! I couldn't go hard enough to get to my goal of 1:45 but did manage 1:48:35 (chip time). I was happy to be in the 1:40's!! Yeah! But there was no celebrating my finish. Nope, it is a family tradition for someone to end up in the medical tent no matter the race venue.

Once I stopped, I was really light headed and dizzy. I was also walking like I was drunk too!! What is up with that? Then I couldn't talk! Kinda freaked me out. Good thing my husband was at the finish line. The kind lady at the finish realized I wasn't going anywhere but the medical tent. And once everyone took a look at me .. Pasty, glazed eyes .. shallow breathing. They new something was up too. (I saw my finish line pictures... ewww yuck!) It has been a long time (2001/2002) since I had to see an EMT from racing. (That time my glucose was 30)

First, let me say I am greatful to the men and women who worked at the medical tent. They did a great job! At first, it seemed like they didn't know what to do with me and this was from a medical professor of pulmonology and nurses from the UW. My O2 level was 89 and my HR was 120 and not looking like it was going down. (It took about an hour to get to 90 on the HR and 100 on my O2) My BP was high ... and I typically have a normal BP. My glucose was fine .. more than fine for me at 132. My sodium was fine. I kept saying I was really really hot and thought I said "ice". But I was still delirious for a while there so maybe I just "thought it" but didn't voice it.
This one guy was walking around in the background looking antsy. It turnes out he was the director of the race or medical area and wanted to ship me to the hospital because I wasn't recovering fast enough. (I think if I had ice on my head I would have recovered faster.)

They took a blood test to see what my hydration level was ... ops ... it wasn't good. I was trying to drink while lying there but my stomach would just cramp up badly. So I was being re-hydrated and had to use my inhaler, again. (Three times in 3 hrs isn't good). I recovered .. and laughed about it later. The temps went up greatly while we ran and by the end of the day it was 50s.

Not sure what was up with the asthma (until now) and not sure why I became so dehydrated. In hind site, I really think I should have poured the water over my head and cooled my body down. I couldn't take off the long sleeve shirt -- unless I wanted to stop. "There's no stopping in a race!" Dehydration and asthma are not a good combo. My regular doctor thinks I have laryngospasm's when I exercise...totally not thinking that but she is right 90% of the time.

I did like this race, besides the issue I had, and plan to do it next year with a few modifications on my part. The crowds were large and lots of people running.

The next day my legs were so sore! Two days later still sore and a massage. Three days later a massive sore throat (thanks kids); however I did run on Thursday when the temp was 32 and sunny out. Pace was 9:30 for 6 miles. I couldn't go any faster. Today, I sat on the couch all day.

Tomorrow I may attempt to run on the dread mill for an hour for the first time since way back in April. Still unusually cold here. Dread mill is better than no working out ..

I cannot wait to run the flat 1/2 marathon in Arizona! (January)